Page 103 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
“The storm,” I reminded them.
A few had the good graces to look embarrassed. Noel’s followers did not.
“Roman, what word from the scouts I had you send out?” I asked, glancing at my best friend in the first row, sitting between the elders and the Noel’s dissenters.
Looking like he’d bitten into an onion at the prospect of being called to speak in front of such an angry crowd, Rome stood. “We could only scout an hour. The storm does appear to be centered over the forest as best we can tell. None of our scouts reported finding an end before being driven back by increasing winds. We may indeed be trapped here.”
He sat abruptly, looking anywhere but at me. Like he didn’t want to be associated with me.
“Thank you,” I said to a chorus of muted whispers.
“She caused the storm,” Noel said, surging to his feet.
I laughed in his face. The unusual and anger-inducing response had its intended effect. Noel turned bright red, trembling with fury.
“I was with her all morning. She did no such thing. On our way here, the storm nearly killed her as much as it did me. I smelled her fear.” I cast my gaze out over the rest of crowd, ignoring Noel and incensing him further. “It was genuine. I do not doubt that.”
“I wonder why,” Noel said quietly, under his breath, but in the silence that followed my words, it was heard by all.
Moving slowly, I pulled my gaze back to Noel, fixing it on him with as much weight as I could manage.
“Noel,” I said, addressing him in front of the vast majority of the pack. Singling him out. Isolating him. “If you challenge my word one more time, I will remind you whyIam alpha, and you are not. Is that clear?”
I let the threat hang in the air as the silence grew deafening. Perhaps it was a cheap shot, a reminder of how he had lost to me in the fight to become alpha after my father’s death, but that didn’t matter. Sometimes such things were necessary to remind those who had forgotten.
“The storm has the stench of the Chained about it,” I said to the rest of the pack, speaking louder once more. I had hoped not to bring the Chained up with Sylvie around, but the more I’d planned for this meeting, the more I’d determined it was impossible otherwise. Not if I was to deflect blame from her to it.
“The Chained?” scoffed Elder Jackson. “Don’t be absurd. It doesn’t have the power to do something this big. It’s still bound at the heart of the forest.”
“Itdidn’thave the power,” I corrected. “And I doubt it can sustain this. But I have smelled its rotten stink before, and I am telling you it is behind it. The bonds holding it there are not as strong as they used to be. And there’s more.”
The final word echoed through the chamber, repeated by more than one mouth. Whatmorecould there be?
I told them about the tree-thing. How it was sent to kill Sylvie, and that I battled it and defeated it but did not kill it. I showed the wound on my side, evidence of its prowess in battle.
“Be alert,” I told my people. “Nobody leaves the pack lands for the time being. It will be back. It will come for her again. Try to engage it in pairs.”
Noel spoke up, trying to rescue his pride and strength. “By bringingherhere, you have also lured it to our home. You have put our people in danger.”
“Yes!” Elder Germander said, latching on to that. “We were safe until she came to town and you started spending time with her.”
“Safe?” I barked, sarcastic laughter following. “Safe? Do better. We are dire wolves. We have adragonfor a neighbor. Fae as extended kin. We haveneverbeensafe. Nor have we ever run from danger,” I added with a growl, glaring at Noel to make clear my feelings on those who turned and ran.
I didn’t have to call him a coward. But everyone knew I had.
“Our ancestors would be ashamed of us if we ran away from a fight when it came to us.” I scanned the faces of my pack. Many disagreed but fewer than I had expected. More agreed with me than I had dared hope.
But was it enough? I wasn’t sure. Too many weren’t looking at me. They were still looking past me.
“All right. I can see that many of you are finding it impossible to focus on the true problem facing us. So let’s have it out. Shall we? Get to the yelling and screaming about Sylvie still being here.”
I gestured, giving up the floor to the entire pack. Silence reigned for five seconds, and then it exploded into a dozen or more voices at the same time. I let it go on, and on, until one familiar voice began to exert some semblance of control.
“Go ahead, Noel,” I said, gesturing. “Speak.”
“We have distanced ourselves from her bloodline on purpose!” he shouted.
“Indeed we have,” I agreed, nodding. “Aftergenerationsof working alongside them. And look where it’s gotten us. Has anyone besides me made the correlation that since her grandmother died, the last of her bloodline to be close with us years ago, since then things have grownworse? Or did you all miss that the Chained has grown stronger since then? I can’t be the only one who can do that math.”
